


Sweets From Strangers

by AshyGurl101



Category: The Deep (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, mamakaijuofdoom, nevertakesweetsfromstrangers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:40:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29286186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshyGurl101/pseuds/AshyGurl101
Summary: |I have no idea if this is an AU or not|Ant learns a valuable lesson, surprisingly from Dolos...DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'The Deep'. All rights go to Tom Taylor and James Brouwer.
Kudos: 4





	Sweets From Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> When you write a oneshot in one day cuz you're in lockdown and you've lost your mind...

"What do I have to do to make you **—** oh, for the love of Sedna..."

Dolos threw something small at Ant. He caught it on a reflex. It was a wrapped lolly. "The only time children ever shut up is when their mouths are full," he explained. "You should try it sometime, William."

"I don't take sweets from strangers," he declared, surprised with himself.

Dolos puffed himself up like a blowfish with no spines. "Me? A stranger? William, this is unacceptable! I was your only friend in college and..."

Ant tuned out to the lecture. And Dolos called _him_ the Child?

Dolos ended up making made such a fuss that Ant finally popped the sweet in his mouth.

"Are you happy now?" he mumbled through the surprisingly not disgusting sweet.

"No!" Dolos flounced to a chair. He sat in it with his nose to the air and his back to the Nektons. Hydra crawled into his lap and he petted her, ignoring the rest of the cabin. The parents decided they wouldn't get anything out of him, so Dad shooed them all out.

As soon as they were at the speedboat, Mum smacked the back of his head. "Why is that thing still in your mouth?" she hissed furiously.

"It tastes nice," he protested. And it did. It tasted _awesome_. He waited for someone else to say something. Treats like this always tasted the best in the middle and Ant wanted to reach the middle.

That was odd, though. What he'd said to Dolos was true. He didn't just take things from strangers. Except for letters from old men in rowboats. And advice from them. And distress calls from pretty much everyone in the world.

Fine. He took stuff from strangers. But then he got to know them so they weren't strangers! And besides, he'd never taken a sweet from a stranger. He hadn't been offered one. Until today.

"What harm can it do?" Dad asked.

Mum scowled and ushered him into the boat. "A lot more than you'd think. What is my number one rule regarding this market?"

Fontaine raised her hand. "If you see a pink custard **—** "

"NO! The other number one rule. We are _not_ discussing the custards!"

"Trust nobody," Fontaine amended hastily.

"And..."

"Dolos is a lot less trustworthy than Nobody."

"Correct! So, Antaeus, why is that sweet not in a garbage can?"

Ant took a quick look around. "There aren't any?" he suggested before he could check himself. Well, he was in trouble now. Mum seemed really mad.

But before anyone could say anything else, a bottle flew through the air and shattered on the wall behind Ant's head. Everyone jumped into the boat. As much as Mum would probably like bashing up a party of drunks, it was time to go.

"Don't be complacent. That thing goes in a bin as soon as we get home," she warned, revving the engine.

Ant nodded. That was totally fine with him. He liked this favour, whatever it was. Besides, he'd get to the middle by the time they got home, so it wasn't such a hard loss...

* * *

"Come out here this instant, you little witch!"

Dolos looked up from the game of chess he was playing. How Hydra kept winning he couldn't fathom. He was sure queens couldn't jump over pieces like knights. Maybe he should find the instructions...

"Dolos! You have three seconds to be standing in front of me!"

By the sound of that, it worked. He allowed himself a triumphant little smirk before poking his head out the door.

Kaiko immediately stepped into his bubble of personal space, holding her Child by the arm. "Why is my son making seabird noises?"

Said son made a rumpled chirring noise to prove it.

Dolos looked at the forlorn boy with surprise. "He's still making them?"

"Fontaine has identified three hundred species."

"Twelve to go, then." Dolos shrugged.

The Child twittered indignantly.

Kaiko almost pulled her hair out."He's been squawking for sixteen hours!"

Dolos did a double-take. "Sixteen?" He definitely did some calculations wrong.

"What did you do?"

He stepped out of the doorway and Kaiko barged in, still holding onto the Child. "You're meant to add an hour for each layer, up to twelve, until you reach the middle."

A worried caw came out of the boy's mouth.

"Then, indefinitely." Seeing that she might lose her zen, Dolos sat in his chair and tucked his legs up.

"You gave that to my son **—** "

Dolos clamped his hands over his ears and looked reproachfully at the Mamakaijuofdoom that was Kaiko Nekton. She took a step back and made a visible attempt to calm herself. After a few seconds, she looked at him.

"You gave that to my son knowing he might make those noises forever?"

"He wasn't supposed to eat the whole thing!"

Kaiko's temper went flying out the window. "You gave it to him to shut him up, but he wasn't meant to eat the whole thing? Did you tell him to stop? Did you warn him? You could have warned him!"

"You were supposed to do that!" Dolos shrieked. "You were meant to make him spit it out! Plus, none of you trust me! He should have ditched it anyway! You were my plan B!"

"Me?" she screamed. "You tried to use me in one of your plans? You little sh **—** "

Ant made the loudest, most raucous birdcall Dolos had ever heard. Judging by the way Kaiko stopped trying to bash his skull in, she hadn't heard a macaroni penguin that mad before either.

After being scolded severely in bird language, which was the funniest thing Dolos had ever seen, Kaiko turned around, eyes glowing like hellfires.

"Just give me the antidote, then we'll leave." She settled herself against the door.

Dolos had counted eight species in the lecture, plus the three from before. That meant...

"Child."

He looked sulkily at the floor.

"Tell your mother to go home."

A huff. But that should have been expected. Kids never do what they're told. They do the opposite. Luckily, he was a master of reverse psychology.

Dolos sighed and hung his head. "You know what, fine. Don't go home. As long as you're quiet, I don't care." He turned to face Hydra, who had been passively watching and not so passively restraining laughter. "Some help you were," he muttered under his breath.

The octopus patted his shoulder and moved her queen. _Checkmate_ , she signed.

"Shhh!"

"What?" Dolos pretended to be annoyed, but inside, he was pleased. They would finally leave him alone!

Actually, once he thought about it, he was still pissed. If the Child broke his silence because he wanted to critique his chess-playing, he was going to force-feed him another sweet.

"Cheater! You can't move your queen like that. The only pieces that jump over others are knights."

His intent must have shown on his face because Hydra leapt off her stool and raced for the door. When it was blocked by Kaiko, she jumped into her tank and screwed the lid on tight. Dolos started signing furious insults through the glass.

"Hey."

He turned around. Why did they have to keep meddling? The Child was fixed and Dolos had fully moved on to the pursuit of punishing Hydra. "What? Your Child is working again. Go home!"

"How did you know when Ant could start talking again?"

Dolos sighed. He'd sighed a lot in the past hour. "When you get to the middle, the effects aren't timed. It's indefinite because it's different from each person. You'd take a different amount of time to go through three hundred twelve, wouldn't you?" He started pushing her towards the door.

"Three hundred and twelve as in the three hundred and twelve types of seabird?" The Child followed Kaiko out.

"Right. Have another candy."

"They make you do every single seabird call? Can I give one to Fontaine? Then she'd make sample beats with her own voice! Can I have another sweet?"

Dolos shut the door on the incessant chatter. He slid down it, still pressing firmly on the wood. Hydra knocked on the wall of her tank. He flipped her off. This was too much for one day.

He was never going to take free sweets from old men in rowboats again.

**Author's Note:**

> Where did Nereus even GET those? XD


End file.
